Bankruptcy trustee files lawsuit against execs at Arrow Trucking

In the year since Arrow Trucking Co’s abrupt closure, bankruptcy trustee Patrick J. Malloy III has been tasked with sorting through the company’s financial records to find answers as to what led to the 61-year old Tulsa-based flatbed carrier’s collapse.

In court documents submitted recently in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of Oklahoma, Malloy has filed a lawsuit against two former officers of Arrow Trucking. The lawsuit alleges that Doug Pielsticker, the company’s former president and CEO, and his mother, Carol Pielsticker Bump, who is listed as the company’s sole director, received fraudulent transfers of at least $12.8 million of Arrow Trucking’s assets for their personal use over a four-year period prior to the company’s Chapter 7 bankruptcy petition in January 2010.

According to the lawsuit, Pielsticker received $8.4 million in fraudulent transfers from Arrow Trucking, and Bump received $4.4 million in fraudulent transfers “disguised as ‘salary.’”

“In their capacity as Director and CEO, Carol and Doug owed fiduciary duties to Arrow (Trucking),” the suit states.

“Carol and Doug, in the excise of reasonable care and business judgment should have known that the transfers specified herein constituted either constructive fraud or were effected with the actual intent to defraud and taken steps to prevent such transfers, and that such transfers constituted the dissipation of Arrow’s assets to the detriment and harm of Arrow (Trucking) and its creditors.”

A few days before Christmas in 2009, hundreds of drivers were stranded all across the country when the company abruptly shut its doors. Most were under load when Arrow cut off their fuel cards.